El Nocturno Lunar / Lunar Nocturne

About the Painting

This painting was created for a local art project called the “Storyteller Project.” Garr was one of seven artists selected to take part.

Each artist was to create a piece inspired by a creative prompt from the previous artist, and send their work to the next artist without any explanation, without knowledge of who the current artist was, and with no knowledge of any previous creative prompts.

The first artist created whatever they wanted (in this case, a poem), and sent it to the second artist, and the chain was started.

The first prompt (the poem) was sent to an artist who created images with copper wire. This artist sent their work to a photographer, who sent their work to a musician.

This musician sent a video to Garr of an out-of-focus woman's face that was flickering eerily, with a melancholy original solo piano track.

Garr's immediate feeling was that this was a piano piece dedicated to a lost loved one. Garr's concept for the painting became the story of the piano player and his remembrance of his mate.

Because of Garr's surrealist sensibilities, he felt that the piano concert should in the desert at night, and that both the piano player and his deceased loved one should be jaguars.

Here is the story being told in this painting — a story of enduring love:

Each year, on the full moon nearest the anniversary of his dearly beloved’s death, this pianist seeks the solitude of the desert night to play a passionate nocturne he wrote in her memory.

As the haunting strains of his melancholy melody permeate the night air, the spirit of his departed love one materialises! They are together again for the all too brief length of his musical tribute to her.

Somehow, the moon always seems fuller on these nights.

For those who might not recognise it, the deceased loved one is wearing a Catrina mask — a symbol in Mexico of the Day of the Dead.

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The Specs...

Digital art resembling an acrylic painting, reproduced on gallery-wrapped canvas — Size (W x H): 75cm x 46cm (30in x 18in).